Building A Global e-Networking Community Focusing on Black Genealogy/Family History and the Cultural/Spiritual Traditions of African people worldwide. EWOSA Village @facebook.com. Follow my blog at http://blkrootsworker.blogspot.com/?m=1

I've traced my ancestry back to Mali. Draped in gold and purple, with silver rings on her fingers and anklet bells tinkling, my ancestor was a queen of all queens-in-waiting, beautiful, smart, quick-witted and cute as all get out, but a lil headstrong. She told her father, my ancestor, the king, that she was going to Timbuktu, but turned her camel towards Nigeria to be with that "boy." Well, wouldn't you know it. Hooked up with the boy just in time to be caught up in a slave-catching sweep and here I am today.

I've traced my ancestry back to Mali. Draped in purple and gold, with silver rings on her fingers and anklet bells tinkling, my ancestor was a queen of all queens-in-waiting, beautiful, smart, quick-witted and cute as all get out, but a lil headstrong. She told her father, my ancestor, the king, that she was going to Timbuktu, but turned her camel towards Nigeria to be with that "boy." Well, wouldn't you know it. Hooked up with the boy just in time to be caught up in a slave-catching sweep and here I am today.

I can’ t help those that were taught to hateMeWhen you have to pretend to seeYouKnowing it was told to you byMeIf we all can be sons ofWeThen maybe the truth of alwaysUsWill be willing to except Us beWeAnd at the same time their being NoUs Without Me!

Oh you like that one? Well, alrighty now! Here's the "other" side, the side the family doesn't talk about so much - the Italian connection (hey! don't mock me - 85% of African-Americans are of mixed ancestry!): Tracing back to the small Italian village of Gepetto.... my ancestor was, well, a blockhead. While a dreamer of being many things was he, still ole boy was a blockhead. He got to America stowed away in the streamer trunk of an Irishman named McCarthy. It had to be a big one for he had one of those loooong horsey-European noses which prolly took up half the space! Which is why I don't talk about him much. Even as I wrote the history of my Mali ancestor, I was thinking that if Candeesweet saw my nose as I wrote glowingly of the beauteous head-strong African princess draped in gold and purple, she'd smirk.